The Framingham Forgery
by infiniteviking
Summary: Introspection missing scene from A Study in Scarlet. "He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case....."


**The Unelucidated Casebook of Sherlock Holmes:**

**The Framingham Forgery**

There was one little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow, who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came three or four times in a single week...

"Lestrade is a well-known detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what brought him here."

--Watson and Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

000

"If you'll excuse me for a moment," said Sherlock Holmes, waving his visitor into a chair. Leaning over, he thrust the poker into the fire and whipped it out again with a charred bit of foolscap impaled on the end. The paper had apparently suffered little, for Holmes afforded it only a cursory survey and wedged it into a sheaf of unanswered correspondence on the desk. "It would have been a shame to allow that to burn. Now, Lestrade, has the postman confessed yet?"

The police inspector burst out laughing. "By heaven, sir, you'll soon have me believing that you are the culprit yourself," he said. "Where did you get the idea that we suspected the postman?"

"If the letter did indeed arrive in that morning's post," said Holmes wearily, "then the postman is the only possible suspect. What did you find out?"

"Well, it's a rum thing. The young lady still knows nothing about it. She has even allowed that she regrets sending the original letter, and is hoping that Framingham will know better than to take it seriously. If he hadn't noticed the difference in the paper, we might never have known about it at all."

"But the postman?"

"Answered your description," said Lestrade. "In every particular. Weak fingers, solitary habits, topped the half-century two years ago, shiny cuffs, chews tobacco... you might have seen the man yourself."

"I saw the letter. No more was needed. Have you scoped out his range yet?"

"He appears to have taken an active hand in the correspondence of at least fourteen families." Lestrade shook his head wonderingly. "He told me that he believed himself to be ageing, and was afraid to die without leaving his mark on the world. In the end I think he was living almost entirely through other people's letters."

"The curse of the artistic temperament," said Holmes. "You could have drawn the inference yourself, had you only allowed for the possible ingenuity of what is essentially a human cog in the machinery of society. -- Well, Framingham will forgive the original letter, and all will be well, but I shouldn't be too harsh on the postman if I were you. He will live for a while yet, if you leave him any hope."

000

When the door had closed behind the inspector, Sherlock Holmes leaned out of his chair, withdrew the charred sheet from the pile, gave it a quick raking glance, and threw it once more into the fire.

He had seen this coming for weeks. A lesser man with his gifts might have taken offense at his fellow-boarder's ceaseless curiosity. But Watson, whatever his weaknesses, had never once demanded the information that he was so anxious to obtain. In fact, he had shown himself the soul of discretion -- even going so far as to destroy the evidence of his speculations rather than intrude on another's affairs.

In addition, the exercise appeared to be doing him some good. Holmes, perhaps as much as no other, valued the beneficial power of mental stimulation. He was not one to grudge the war-scarred doctor a dose of healthy incongruity.

With Lestrade gone, the sitting room seemed strangely empty. Aware that Holmes used the room as a place of business, Watson obligingly retired to his own room whenever something came up. He was probably using the time to write. The signs were all there, for anybody with the courage to read them. The inference was one thing, of course; to act upon it would have been something quite different, something as inexcusable as the presumptions which Watson had become so adept at avoiding. Nineteenth-century British man was a densely packed community of lone wolves, eyeing one another warily through a comprehensive code of behavior designed to do away with curiosity and the ambition that accompanies any kind of talent.

(.._He was living almost entirely through other people's letters_.)

Thoughtfully Holmes stirred the coals. The paper had already been consumed, but its contents remained in his memory.

"_Sherlock Holmes -- His Limits_."

There was certainly a live mind behind that veneer of polite detachment. And the devil of it was: the man had hardly missed a thing.

Sherlock Holmes reached again toward his desk. His hand came back with a sheet of paper, which he balanced on his knee.

_The curse of the artistic temperament_...

"We are happy to inform you," said the document, "that your article, 'The Book of Life', meets our standards, and will be published in..."

Holmes nodded slowly, his mind already elsewhere as he fed the note to the flames.


End file.
